


thaumatrope

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Assassins & Hitmen, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dehumanization, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Human Trafficking, Humiliation, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Slavery, Slow Build, Starvation, Stockholm Syndrome, Unhealthy Relationships, continually referenced past torture and abuse from events of chapter one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-07
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-03-28 02:34:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13894389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Hux had a future; Armitage had nothing.Ben had a past; Kylo Ren had a hit list.





	1. conniption (one)

**Author's Note:**

> please HEED THE TAGS. this is NOT a nice fic, on anyone's part. and i'm definitely going to veer into a tonne of squicky territory.
> 
> that being said, if you're here for the horror... welcome.

arc i: _conniption_

_time unknown_

 

They had kept him in this room for days.

 

Unending, unyielding-- such a vast expanse of time that it might not have been any time at all. He didn’t know-- and didn’t care, because he didn’t have the right to care. They’d taken that from him as soon as they’d trapped him, with a hand around his waist and a cloth pressed over his nose and mouth.

 

The only thing that Armitage could remember was his own weakness; the flutter of lashes across his bloodshot eyes as black spots invaded his vision, the throbbing echo of his heartbeat in his skull as his lungs desperately heaved, gasping for air even when he couldn’t speak, his hand lax as he’d maneuvered his fingers around the wrist of his captor...

 

Nothing.

 

Nothing. Nothing. _Nothing._ Time passed slowly. Quickly. There was no way of telling, once he’d grown accustomed to his captors, desensitized to the _wrongness_ of it that grated on his nerves and prodded at his flesh and ripped him open from the inside-out. He felt like he was caught in a waking dream, some dizzying not-real state of hypersomnia that left him barely cognizant and minimally functional. They’d started by stripping him; clothing, identification, papers-- everything had been burned. Or maybe they’d hidden it, held onto it like a souvenir to gloat over-- no. It wasn’t worth the effort to wonder, anymore. Once they’d had him, it had been over. He’d never had a chance to begin with. Questioning it only made everything worse; he’d nearly driven himself mad with the _what ifs_ and the _whys_ and the _hows_ of it all. He was. He just. Was. Here. Theirs. Didn’t have a choice, didn’t have a chance.

 

(dont let it break you dont let it dont let them break you cant do it)

 

 _(worthless worthless worthless_ **_bitch_ ** _you’ll do as you’re told only as you’re told, on your knees, on your back, you’ll let them have you because if you don’t it could get_ **_so much worse_ ** _and we don’t want that, do we?)_

 

_(you’re nothing. you’re trash. nobody is looking for you. nobody cares.)_

 

 _(you’ll spread those pretty legs of yours and let my friend fuck that loose hole of yours, your little cunt is dripping for it, you’re not a man, you’re not a human, you’re_ **_nothing_ ** _and you’ll remember that or i’ll let one of the others beat your filthy ass black and blue)_

 

The ceiling of the room was a pale, sickly yellow, the paint peeling away in a few places, residual stains left on the drywall from leakage in the room above. Armitage had taken to staring at a particular spot, just over where he lay, where the drywall had been pulled away entirely, leaving wooden beams visible beneath. The beams were not yellow, or white, or _revolting,_ not odious or intrusive the way everything else seemed to be. He liked to stare at them while he was being fucked, because having something to look at kept him away from the pain. And he did _hurt,_ always, intimately. Fingers laid bruises around the slight curve of his waist, his too-skinny torso, where bones had come to protrude so far that they could be easily counted as they shifted beneath his skin. His hipbones were visible, too, jutting from his pelvis like fleshless tombstones framing the valley of his concave stomach as it heaved and reddened and tensed under the touch of a client. His cock wasn’t worth mentioning, for as often as it refused to respond to the attention of his betters, even after they’d worked his body long past its breaking point. The overstimulation sometimes caused Armitage to scream and writhe and go pliant beneath his partner with tears leaking out of his eyes, mottled trails clinging to his cheeks. They loved to watch him squirm, especially when he was on his back; tugging him up by the roots of his still-short, unwashed red hair, or laying their palm into his skin to see how far they could push, how much he could _cry_ before he’d exhausted himself.

 

It was. Sick. He felt--everything-- _nauseated._ Disgust rose in his mind as bile rose in his throat, wanting to fight even when he’d long since given up. They’d broken his feet at the ankle, stuck short, stiff metal rods through each one and latched them with a sphere at one end and a clasp on the other, where chains could be easily attached. _Couldn’t have him running. Couldn’t have him kicking._ He was property. And property couldn’t leave of its own accord.

 

He couldn’t-- _oh._ His legs wrapped ever tighter around the waist of the man whose cock was driving into the gape of his abused hole, feet twitching and short, staccatoed gasps being punched out of his lungs with each inward thrust. Drool lined the corner of his lips; the client pushed his thumb into Armitage’s mouth, made him keep his lips open, too. The taste of the man’s skin made Armitage want to choke. Sweat pooled along his hairline, in the dip of his collarbone as teeth sunk into the pale column of his neck. He gasped. Couldn’t come, but the man’s dick was pushed right up against his prostate, and he was-- ah, ah, _ah,_ yes-- hating it- _\- wanting to come._ Degenerate.

 

A fire kindled behind his eyes, bursting suddenly into a vivid display of lightning and broken glass and golden glitter raining down on him as the shard of broken-off metal pierced his skin. There was semen slipping out of his hole in the client’s wake, muscles still spasming, tightening around nothing. It never felt good like this. The master could make it feel good; pump him up with drugs and stuff his body full of them. He’d be bleeding morphine. It would make the pain fade into a dull ebb. He could close his eyes. Feel… _bliss._ Reminisce of better times. Before this.

 

He’d been beaten by his father since he was young, always aware of Brendol’s disappointment in his existence, always considerate of his _bastard_ heritage, his _whore_ mother. Brendol said he was too soft to be anything different. He said that she’d _coddled_ him too much, before Brendol had taken him in and taught _discipline_ and _control._

 

Armitage didn’t remember his mother.

 

She hadn’t been a whore. He was the whore.

 

He retched, squirming fruitlessly against the defiled, filthy sheets under his emaciated frame. His arms pulled in close to his chest, rolling onto his side with a pathetic whine. He wanted water. Master would give him water, if he asked. He’d been good today, he’d been _so good, so good, and he was so sore, near feverish._ Needed to be cleaned up. Needed to _drink._

 

How many people had used his body in the last few hours alone? How late was it? How long had he _been_ here? When could he sleep-- he needed-- _craved sleep._ Wanted to go back to the other room, the dark one where he’d be given water, allowed a bowl of rice or a couple slices of bread and granted a moment to relieve himself before being tucked into bed beneath a thin blanket to await the next morning. It was better when he was alone. The dark felt pleasant, unlike this too-bright room with all its terrible contents.

 

_Please._

 

“Up.”

 

The command was simple, and direct. He struggled to push himself upward, trying to sit, gingerly, legs dangling off the bed as he was maneuvered into an upright position, and his hands were manipulated to rest against his handler’s chest, unmoving until a pair of arms seized him by the waist and hefted his deadweight body off of the bed. Without thinking, Armitage twined his hands around the other’s neck, leaning into the stability presented by the larger body before him.

 

“Good.” The handler said with a smirk, hardly sparing even a second-long glance at his face before those spiteful, dark brown eyes trailed over the rest of his body. His face was old, wrinkles worn into his brow, crisscrossed scars running down the length of his jaw; master called him _Scarface,_ a testament to how little their sort valued creativity. Unless creativity meant _torture,_ of course.

 

“Don’t get any of your filth on me before we wash you,” Scarface hissed, guiding Armitage away from the bed, closer to the door. “I don’t want any of the disgusting diseases you might have picked up. Though you should be grateful that your worthless, whore ass has someone who does.” A hand pressed roughly into the small of his back, shoving Armitage forward, graceless. His knees buckled and his head spun; he wanted to scream, wanted to _die,_ anything would be better than--

 

_Someone who does. Want you._

 

_Someone who wants you._

 

_Who?_

 

The mangled flesh on the side of his ribcage throbbed in response, shifting and pulsating as if to accommodate the burn of the brand when it had been first set into his skin. Armitage sunk his teeth into his lower lip, _steady, steady, grounded, its fine nothings wrong its fine nothings bad._

 

(He’d told himself the same thing when he’d been grabbed, after, in the back of a run-down van, his arms and knees bound, ropes around his neck secured to his elbows, wrists strung to a metal rail over his head. Back when he was _Armitage Astor Hux_ and not his master’s _‘Gingersnap.’_ He’d kept his name, in his head if nothing else, like some brittle, fragile reminder that he’d been a _person_ once. Before he was property, before he was left on his own in a cold room, raped, beaten, his legs tied to opposite posts on a bed, shaking and crying for the first time since he’d lost his mother. His father had beaten the tears out of him, beaten the empathy and the sensitivity and the _weakness_ out of him, tried to instill the remainder of his broken bastard with _anger_ and _hatred_ instead.)

 

(It had worked, for awhile. It had worked, until he was twenty-three and well-adjusted enough that he’d grown haughty, shot a look of disdain at the wrong man in a cafe, or perhaps ignored the attention of a desperate woman grasping at his arm on the street. Until he had foolishly assumed that he was _invulnerable,_ because he may not have been well off, but he was intelligent and he’d been _successful,_ well on his way to a doctoral degree in criminal justice and _Hux didn’t cry because he’d had nothing to cry about._ Nothing to fear.)

 

(How wrong he had been.)

 

Armitage doesn’t know how old he is. He doesn’t know _where_ he is. If he’d been asked to pass a court competency test, he’d have failed it nine times out of ten, because he can’t even remember how many men have shoved their dicks up his ass or down his throat. He can’t remember how many times he’s been _hurt_ because he didn’t comply fast enough when his master told him to turn over and pull apart his cheeks, how many lashes had been scored into his back with a belt when he _dared_ to ask a question, or even open his mouth without permission. He can’t _think_ because he is nothing, sub-human, less than even the least valuable of objects.

 

There’s a hand tangled in his hair, fisting the red locks and jerking him to the side, throwing him haphazardly onto the floor. Armitage, a tall mess of tangled limbs without any mass to sustain him, tumbles forward easily, body tensing at the collision, hands barely managing to prevent his skull from smacking into filthy cement.

 

“Water,” Scarface jerks his head toward a cup set on the ground in the corner. “Don’t worry. Boss’ll be back soon to give you what you need.”

 

The door slams. Locks, immediately after. It’s a big, metal contraption, too much for Armitage to move alone, let alone try to break open. He won’t bother to try, though. No-- that time had come and gone.

 

Dragging himself across the floor, he manages to take hold of the flimsy, brown-grey blanket that has so often kept him company, bundling it around himself, curling in on his own frame.

 

He should sleep, if he can. Even the nightmares are a reprieve from reality.

 

* * *

 

 _He is running through the woods. The air hisses past his face, chilling skin down to the bone, sinking deep into his flesh like the blade of his father’s hunting knife. There is blood on the ground, scarlet smears streaking across the blanket of crystalline snow for miles behind him. His feet, clad in thick, black leather boots, steel at the toe and heavy on his legs, move over the ground in double-time as he runs; he cannot stop running. Hands are reaching for him, out from the abyss of the night behind him, clawing at his shaking form, and his feet are giving way and he’s_ **_falling,_ ** _down down down--_

 

_Oblivion._

 

 _There is a match in front of his face. Golden light flickers over the water-stained cement of a cold cellar, freezing water lapping at his now bare ankles. He is chained to the floor by the stubs of his severed legs, and the pressure is so constrictive he can hardly breathe. The water climbs. It is almost at his knees, and a light flickers red over his head and suddenly it is_ scalding, _he’s crying and begging but the words will not move past his lips, not like this, his windpipe is caving in on itself and_ he’s going to die and--

 

**Wake up.**

 

* * *

 

Armitage is feverish. He’s lying on his back, a light over his face, his arms bound tight at his sides and he’s _trembling,_ shuddering and clawing at the ground beneath him, his torn nails and sensitive fingertips leaving bloodied marks over the metal he’s been lain on.

 

_Metal._

 

His vision is spotty, the only visible image before him a streak of fluorescent light offset by shadows milling about over his body. Cobweb eyelashes flutter, aimlessly, but his vision does not clear; his head is spinning. He feels… _young._ Remembers being sent off to boarding school, how he’d mixed pills with liquor after ten months there and started seizing up, a shaking, near-catatonic mess, drooling all over himself with his eyes spinning in his skull. Oh, gods, it had _hurt--_ he can still remember-- he can…

 

Something _shrieks._ Loud, jarring, in his ears; his eyes close. Then they open. And--

 

_It’s not real it’s not real it’s--_

 

Here.

 

It’s… a man. Although he hardly looks a man, covered in blood, the crimson liquid streaking his knuckles, soaking the black fibers of his shirt, splattered across his face in wide, sweeping arcs of beautiful red dots. He’s tall, taller than Armitage, practically as tall as he thinks the master seemed to be, but so much broader. His presence takes up the entire doorway, the room, the hall outside, where everything is unnaturally, eerily _silent._

 

He doesn’t look like a man. He looks like _death incarnate._ Skin so pale it’s practically bloodless; tangled black hair, piercing eyes. And bloody. So, so bloody.

 

Armitage feels like a pitiful thing, lying broken and bruised and malnourished on the ground. But he’s not scared; the worst the beast could do is _kill_ him, and Armitage Hux has not feared death for a very, very long time. He watches the man from over his shoulder, mouth parched, eyelashes fluttering. _Desperate. Defiant._ He has nothing left to lose, after all.

 

“I killed them.” The man speaks, suddenly, shuddering as he speaks. “All of them.”

 

Armitage’s voice is indifferent as he rasps, dully, “Good.”

 

 _“Good?”_ The stranger asks, almost disbelieving. “You don’t care? That I may have taken away your lifeline? Your partner?”

 

“Why would I care?” He asks, changing his position, sitting up, allowing the blanket to slip from his otherwise naked form, a wry laugh escaping from his throat. “Did you think-- do you seriously think that I’m here of my own _free will?_ If I had the capability, I’d have done them in myself.”

 

He moves onto his knees; the chains attached to his ankles rattle, clinking against cement as he drags himself closer to the stranger, grinning, the picture of a madman if there ever were one. Only now does the other drag his eyes over Armitage’s form, his legs, his ribs, his hair-- taking each in before settling, finally, on his face.

 

The man pulls away, viscerally. “Who-- _are_ you?”

 

“It doesn’t matter who I am.” Armitage drawls, not managing to stop himself. “You’re going to take me with you when you leave.”

 

“No.” The man is shaking his head. “No, no, no. That’s _impossible._ Snoke would never--”

 

He freezes, mid-motion; stops, peers at the bloody figure, the worn clothes on his body, the knife clasped in his hand, the-- tattoo, on the inside of his forearm.

 

He _knows_ that tattoo. Knows it, because he’s seen it, because he’d seen it _before,_ that last night, on the arm of a classmate, sitting beside him at the bar, smoking a cigarette and hunched over his phone. Knows it, because he knew the name _Ben Solo,_ the boy who’d spent every year at a different school, in a different town, the _same boy_ who he’d known when they were children on opposite sides of a conference table, the spoiled senator’s son who had teased him for being a _military brat,_ who took him drinking for the first time, who _hated_ Armitage Hux almost as much as he hated his own parents.

 

_“You.”_

 

“Hux--”

 

 _“You did this,”_ He repeated, disbelieving, spiteful, _murderous._

 

“No-- no, Hux, I can explain, I--”

 

 _“You gave me to them!”_ He screamed, frenzied, hands grabbing at Ben’s legs, mangled nails tearing at the fabric, his hands shaking, weak-bodied but full of enmity, desperate.

 

“I didn’t _know!”_ Ben shouts back, kicking Hux’s arms away, the knife falling from his hand as he crashes backward into the wall, hands balled into tight fists, teeth sunk into his lip. He is a beast, nothing else but raw instinct and force, certainly not a creature with _values,_ with _anything_ but self-pity and volatility and _immaturity_ all at once.

 

_I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you I’ll kill you_

 

His hand is reaching, pleading, for the knife, wants to keep it for himself, wants to ram in through Ben Solo’s skull, wants to tear himself apart, _worthless disgusting unwanted…_

 

But he never gets that far; Ben is _on_ him, grabbing his arm and dragging him up and _no, I won’t submit this time, not again, never again, not when I’m so close to being free, let me go, let me go, please, I’ll do whatever you want, STOP!_

 

But Ben doesn’t listen, not this time, and he’s shoving Hux into the wall, wrapping an arm around his neck and pressing a hand over his face as the smaller man thrashes and pushes at him and tries to pry him off.

 

His vision is hazy at the edges, and Ben’s holding him and Hux feels _betrayed,_ feels terrified, again, _always terrified,_ and he’s trying to throw him off, shifting and bucking and pleading, but Ben’s not pulling back, and all he has the time to say before he can no longer see is a plaintive, pitiful _“Why?”_ that’s gone as quick as it comes.

 

Ben’s voice is in his ears and it won’t leave.

 

_“Because I wanted you.”_

 


	2. conniption (two)

Armitage wakes in a bed.

 

It is not his bed-- no, that would be far too much to wish for, a luxury that his owned body cannot afford to even think. But neither is the bed one that belonged to his masters, his--  _ keepers.  _ There are no hands between his legs, spreading the bony, haphazard limbs in a symbolic act of dominance. There is no tongue, dragging up the side of his face as Armitage shudders and closes his eyes in revulsion, waiting for the moment to end.

 

He inhales, shakily, throat dry and mouth parched from thirst. His skin is cold, though he notes after a moment that someone has been generous enough to dress him, if only in part. He is not clean-- sticky trails made by ropes of cum still streak his stomach and the gape of his hole, crusted onto his skin just like the tear tracks along his face. Drool stains the corners of his mouth. If Armitage were allowed to have his dignity, he might have raised his hand to try and clean himself of the mess.

 

But he cannot-- will not--  _ should not.  _ There is fear, still, inside his chest, gnawing at the inside of his sternum, sinking its fangs into his blackened heart. He lays there, among the mess of unclean sheets, stock-still, paralyzed with an overwhelming fear and uncertainty.

 

Then, from what seems like nowhere, a hand appears, slides around the smooth curve of his neck, thumb braced against the nape, fingers rubbing teasingly at his jaw, as though whomever the hand belongs to is attempting to coax him into compliance, as one might an animal.

 

Armitage does not move.

 

“Gingersnap,” a deep voice purrs in his ear, and he remains rigid, still to the point of becoming statuesque. Fingers comb idly through his hair, curling gently in the tangled locks and  _ fuck, this is a joke, this has to be, he isn’t gone, he didn’t die, he’s here, he’s going to take me again and I need to be good, I just need to be good for him, I’m a good boy-- _

 

“How’d we sleep, sweetheart?” The hand in his hair pauses, then, after a moment, yanks Armitage’s head back, another appendage coming to settle over the sheer, black lace of the panties that hold slightly loose on his hips, toying with the frayed hem of the over-large tee he’d been dressed in. Armitage whimpers, not bothering to try and retain his own space; his thighs part quickly, invitingly, waiting for his captor to continue the unwanted ministrations.

 

The man leans over him, and black hair tickles the high-arching bones of his cheeks; his eyelashes flutter. Armitage wants to squirm.

 

“Ben,” he whispers, desperate, scarcely loud enough to be heard. His former classmate grins, seizing Hux’s hip greedily, fingers digging into the abnormally pale skin and the protruding bone hidden underneath. Armitage jolts with the pressure, the too-familiar sense of violation once again coloring his flesh.

 

“Not anymore,” Ben murmurs, his tone almost sing-song. “No, it’s Kylo Ren now. Seems as if we’ve both had a…  _ shift  _ in our identity over the past few years.”

 

Armitage closes his eyes, squeezes them shut so tightly that he thinks his eyeballs will burst. His teeth sink into his lower lip, tongue darting out after a few seconds, unable to refrain from talking completely.

 

“What do you…” he trails off, starts again once his breath feels even enough to finish. “Why did you take me?”

 

“It’s like I said before,” Kylo murmurs, his possessive grip tightening with every wasted second that’s been made as he answers Hux’s question. “I  _ wanted  _ you. And now I have you; so everything has worked out, at least in part.” His fingers trace over the crease of skin that separates Hux’s thigh from his torso, pinching at the swollen muscles, amused.

 

“I was depressed after you disappeared. It was little more than misplaced nostalgia. Do you remember the first time we met, Armitage? I was eleven, you were fourteen. Your father was dragging you along by the wrist to my mother’s meeting, cursing your existence the entire way. Pathetic man obviously couldn’t see what was right in front of him.”

 

Kylo sighs, leaning forward to lay a kiss upon Armitage’s shoulder, nipping at the pale skin he finds there. “You’ve always been so beautiful. I suppose that’s why Snoke took you from me.”

 

The older of the two shakes his head, seemingly incapable of comprehending Kylo’s words; his hand presses weakly against the younger’s broad chest, attempting to hold him at bay-- put distance between their bodies, to whatever effect it might have had. Armitage all but squirms when Kylo merely grabs him by the wrist instead, yanks his arm to the side so he can impose himself on the ginger’s skinny, malnourished body.

 

“You feel weak,” Kylo whispers, pressing his face into Armitage’s recently washed hair, inhaling his scent. “Snoke did you such a disservice, keeping you strung up to sate the appetites of older men. Someone--  _ something _ as radiant as you deserves to be displayed, yes, but not  _ publicly.  _ Not like that.”

 

Then, just as suddenly as it had come, the aggression vacates Kylo’s body; his grip relinquishes the rough hold around Armitage’s skinny wrists, his knees shifting against the mattress as he pulls back, climbing off the bed and resettling in a broad, though insecure, stance. Feet bare on the floor, fingers curling in the fabric of his worn sweatpants. He’d changed clothing-- gone were the blood-spattered black jeans and the fraying shirt, the heavy-toed boots that had tracked footprints over the cement in the Master’s hall after the…

 

_ Slaughter,  _ Armitage thinks to himself, and though he does not hold any remorse for the deaths his captors encountered--  _ I hope they suffered, I hope he tortured them, ripped their tongues out, whipped their hides raw--  _ he cannot deny the chill of fear that has settled in his muscles once more. The threat Kylo poses is obvious. His body is larger, his muscles are overt… eyes glossy as though he’s about to cry, but Ben had always expressed emotion in spades. He’d been easy to read. Full of angst.

 

Hux supposed that might have been one of the things that drew his gaze to Ben Solo, the first time. He’d looked so sad. Melancholic. As though he were utterly alone in the world, with no idea of what role he was meant to play in it.

 

“Who were they?” Kylo speaks abruptly, voice wavering; it’s grown deeper, doesn’t sound the way that Hux had remembered it. Yet there is something ephemeral about the intonation… it is… oddly disquieting.  _ Lacking,  _ Brendol’s voice provides, from somewhere in the recesses of Armitage’s mind.  _ Too emotional, that Solo boy. Just like his rash harpy of a mother. _

 

Armitage licks at his lips again. The texture of the flesh is wrong, chapped and bloody. There’s a hint of liquor on them-- Kylo’s, or one of  _ theirs,  _ he can’t be sure. He evaluates his words as best he can; sits up, just a little.

 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” He questioned, finally. Kylo’s gaze has not once moved from his body, but the stare isn’t cognizant. His mind is wandering.

 

“No.” Kylo assesses, sharply, after a moment has come and fled. “You’re not here to ask questions.”

 

_ I don’t understand.  _ “Please,” is all Armitage says aloud. “Can I-- please, may I have some water?”

 

Ren raises a brow; turns on his heel, stomps into the other room. Returns in a matter of seconds. Armitage is so disoriented he hardly remembers seeing the other move. His fingers will not wrap about the base of the cup when it is offered, and so Kylo’s palm settles in his hair once more; keeping his head in place as he tilts the glass to Armitage’s lips, allowing him to lap at it for minutes without pause, until he inhales improperly and coughs, desperately trying to curl back in on himself. The cup clatters to the floor, contents sloshing out over the floorboards. Kylo’s holding him.

 

“It’s alright, you just can’t drink so fast. I know it hurts, but you have to wait, Armie, you can’t do it alone--”

 

Green eyes wide, all Armitage is capable of doing is clutching to Kylo’s shirt--  _ Ben, his Ben--  _ a needy, frightened animal reliant upon his current owner.

 

“I’m sorry,” Kylo says, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth. “I didn’t know they would-- it wasn’t  _ me,  _ I swear I never would have let them, if I knew--”

 

_ “Who?”  _ Hux croaks, exasperated. Exhausted.

 

“It doesn’t matter, now.” A pause; his body stills. “And it won’t, not again. I’m stronger now. I can protect you, in the way I couldn’t before. When he--”

 

_ A hand across his face, bruises blooming over his jaw. _

 

_ A shattered glass on the floor. Whiskey on the breath of a familiar, derisive tongue; belt pulled from trousers and laid against his back. Flay the skin, erase the sin.  _

 

_ It had been wrong. He had been wrong, always wrong. Incompetent. Impuissant. Worthless. “Just like your whore mother.” _

 

_ “I didn’t raise a bastard only for him to turn out a fairy as well.” _

 

_ \-- kisses, rushed, in the hallway between courses. Sitting at night on the cement ledge overlooking the old amphitheatre, stars twinkling in the abyssal sky. Everything seemed endless, eternal. Ben’s hair was messy, in his eyes, his cheeks bright red, watching Hux with those sad eyes. Their hands were clasped; he was so warm. Always so warm, in the flesh, running his thumb over the back of Hux’s scarred knuckles. “Took a ruler to them again,” he told Ben. “Because he found out about you.” _

 

_ “Me?” Ben had asked. “Or us?” _

 

_ “There is no ‘us’.” Hux answered. “There can’t be. Not in this lifetime.” _

 

_ \----- Ben, his Ben, watching him from at the bar. Two years later. Hux, sneering at him, refusing to make eye contact. Playing Devil’s advocate whenever Ben had the gall to speak up in class. Snatching his hand away when one day, after a philosophy lecture over the ethics of genital mutilation as a punishment for shaming honor, Ben had tried to grab hold of it in reassurance-- _

 

Tears are leaking from his eyes. They spill down over Armitage’s flushed cheeks. His joints ache. His heart is cold. His mind is trembling. He thinks his body might give out. Give in. Whatever is better. Whatever will keep him alive…

 

“I thought I was going to die when you left.” Kylo says, holding him closer, protective, with Armitage’s face tucked into the crook of his neck--  _ emasculating to be held like this-- just a possession, not a person-- slut, filthy slut, pretty, tight hole for me to stick my cock in, you take it so well for an ill-mannered bitch-- _

 

“I didn’t have a choice,” he says. “And-- we hate each other-- we aren’t…”

 

Kylo seizes his chin again. Turns Armitage’s face, rage in his expression, searing into his skull.  _ “No.”  _ He warns. “That was  _ him.  _ And he’s dead.”

 

_ What? _

 

The shock must be written across his face, because Kylo is opening up his mouth and  _ kissing  _ him, over and over, the words falling from his lips in between the twisted show of affection.

 

“When your father was exposed--”  _ kiss  _ “-- and they found out his company was going belly-up--”  _ kiss  _ “--he had to call in favors. He was nearly bankrupt, not that Brendol ever told you--”  _ kiss  _ “--and so my employer loaned him a rather generous amount of cash, just so the lawyers would settle.” A hand slid to the hem of Armitage’s shirt; dragging it up, higher and higher, over bruised skin and emaciated ribs. “But after awhile, Brendol still didn’t have the capacity to repay his generosity. Not in cash--” Another kiss, rougher, against his neck. “--but he did have a beautiful--”  _ nip.  _ “--intoxicating--”  _ teeth, poised just beside his jugular.  _ “--attractive son. A son who was adding to his debt by thousands. A son who was hardly even his, who he always called a  _ disappointing--”  _ blood, springing to the surface of the bite mark on Armitage’s shoulder, neck bruising over the older bruises still lining the high column of his throat.  _ “--useless brat.” _

 

_ No.  _

 

_ “NO!”  _ He screams, the shrill echo of his own voice breaking the langor of whatever… heat-inducing ardor that he’d just been privy to. His flesh stings where Kylo touched it--  _ Ben, your Ben, just Ben--  _ reminding him of  _ men, so many men, fucking him, jeering at him, branding him, scalding him, using him--  _

 

Kylo’s struggling to get arms around him, pull Hux back into the (safety, comfort)  _ prison  _ of his body, worried, concerned (no, he wants to use you, just like everyone else has, always did)-- “Armitage.”

 

_ “Get off-!”  _ His teeth find skin and split it to bone, yanking on the meat of Kylo’s palm as it tries to cover his mouth,  _ on fire, everything is burning, it hurts, make them stop, please,  _ **_Ben--_ **

 

Knees smack against the floor. Everything is blurry. He’s weak.  _ Too weak.  _

 

“--you  _ bit  _ me--” awe. Anger. Astonishment. Danger. Danger.  _ Danger.  _

 

goawaygoawaygoaway

 

“-- he said you’d gone rabid after what Brendol had done to you, after their  _ arrangement,  _ I called him when you were out, he said you went  _ mad,  _ probably died, Hux, I was so  _ scared  _ you died, but you weren’t dead, you were crazy, you were letting them--

 

“Stop.”

 

“-- letting them  _ use  _ you, and now you’re trying to run for it again. Snoke was right. You can’t be trusted, you left me before--”

 

“ _ Stop.”  _

 

“-- but I won’t let that happen again. I killed your father, and now there’s  _ nothing  _ that can keep us apart. Snoke doesn’t have to know. I can keep you, he doesn’t have to know, I don’t have to tell him. You’re  _ mine,  _ and I won’t let anyone else have you.”

 

Whimpering.  _ “Ben.” _

 

“It’s  _ Kylo!”  _ He shouts, and Hux can’t breathe, can’t move-- flung back onto the bed, and something’s going over his face and thinking hurts so much, moving is impossible, he can’t, he’s running on fumes, he needs to  _ eat,  _ needs  _ water,  _ needs to see the world again, feel the outside air on his body, feel the warmth of sun on his back--

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

_ I wanted you too.  _

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

_ Don’t hurt me anymore I can’t take it I don’t want to be fucked I don’t want you to leave me here _

 

“I’m… sorry…”

 

_ I’m yours if you’re gentle. I’ll be yours if you make the pain stop.  _

 

“I love you.”

 

Kylo’s above him, and he  _ is  _ crying now, fat, ugly sobs, the tears and snot smeared across his face, his lips pinched together, shoulders heaving. 

 

“Oh,  _ gingersnap…” _

 

_ His before they ruined it. His affection before they made it hurt.  _

 

Kylo’s hand balls into a fist, and it begins to swing toward Armitage’s face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys thanks for all the love on the first chapter! hope I haven't scared too many off yet haha. 
> 
> would yall prefer shorter chapters with quick updates or longer chapters with longer updates? i'm leaning toward the shorter chapters right now but i'd like to take your opinions into consideration. leave me a note if you comment and let me know! until next~


	3. conniption (three)

**Dark.**

 

_ Everything is dark. There’s no lighting streaming in from behind cheap blinds, no lamp posed atop the desk still lit from the previous night of 1 AM studying and hurriedly scratching notes down in the margins of a notebook. No soft glow from the red light of the space heater in the corner-- no warmth, either. His body is freezing. Bumps have begun to cluster his bare flesh. His eyelids are fluttering; his skull throbs, gut turning. His body is starved. He’d been neglecting his health again (health is secondary in comparison to work)-- not that it would normally matter. But it was  _ so dark.

 

_ Hux’s eyes finally manage to open, the lids pulled away from bloodshot scleras and dilated pupils. His shoulder protests it when he attempts to shift; pressed down into a hard, flimsy mattress. Not his. The room is not his, either. No lights. But also no sound. _

 

_ The silence is more eerie than the cold. _

 

_ He’s rolling onto his side; his foot has gone numb. Hux can hardly feel it when he attempts to twitch his own toes. There’s a rattling sound when his leg pulls closer to his body; the weight of it is too demanding. He feels faint. Groggy. He should be freaked out-- shouldn’t be  _ here,  _ most of all. But he can’t think. No, thinking takes too much effort. _

 

_ Hux considers that it was the drugs which caused him to hold his tongue, for otherwise he is certain he would have fought; abrasive, acerbic. He would have bitten the hand that coaxed his mouth open, the thumb that pressed down on his tongue as the other fingers settled on his jaw, curling under his chin. Instead, he flicks his tongue against the intrusion-- naturally, a reaction borne of  _ confusion  _ and dysfunction. _

 

_ “You’re a pretty one, aren’t ya?” Skin against skin. The hand is trailing down his side, pinching the flesh of his ribs; his clothing is gone. Hux is vulnerable, naked… and self-conscious. Anxious. He says nothing. He cannot speak around the hand in his mouth, cannot shift from the grasp about his waist-- _

 

_ “We’ve got time before the boss gets here,” a knee pushes between his thighs. His skin tingles-- shaved? Head spinning. It hurts too much. He needs water. His vision is unfocused-- contacts gone. Glasses missing. Hux moans around the man’s finger as his back is forced flat on the bed. The hand on his jaw relaxes, pulls away. And then his hands are pulled over his head; there’s a loud click. Arms hooked around his thighs, forcing his legs away from each other. His leg  _ screams.

 

_ And then he’s cognizant. _

 

_ “No--” _

 

_ “Shut up.” The man backhands him, hand yanking his head up by the roots of his hair as it fists in the ungelled locks. The cold edge of a metal blade is pushing into his gut. “You don’t get a say.” _

 

_ “Get off me--” _

 

_ “Shut up!” Shouted this time, and the fist pulls tighter. Fist against his jaw, knee in his ribs. He’s slick between the legs. Blood, maybe; ass feels swollen like his ankle. Something’s torn. He knows it instinctively, just as he’s known something was off behind the darkness and the silence-- but now it’s overwhelming. Now, it’s obvious-- _

 

_ Hux kicks at the man and hears a loud grunt. His head is released. He tries to suck in enough air to regain his breath, pulling at the cuff over his head; back arching, he thrashes against the disgusting filth of the mattress beneath him. He doesn’t scream for help; knows well enough help won’t come. If he wants out, it has to be him, he has to-- _

 

_ “You fucking bitch!” The man in screaming and his legs are being wrestled down, the butt of the knife coming down on his knee and  _ pain,  _ shocking, jarring,  _ bright--

 

_ Now he screams. _

 

_ A hand is pressed over his mouth, a face hoving over his own-- god, his breath is foul, teeth must be practically rotting in his skull-- and his eyes are piercing, demanding, dominant. Authoritative. The only thing in the entire world which Hux can see, and at that moment he knows. _

 

_ He’s not getting away. _

 

_ “Are you going to keep that worthless fuckin’ tongue of yours in your mouth or am I gonna have to cut it out?” His captor hisses. “Are you going to be  _ good?” 

 

_ He’s shaking. Manages, somehow, to nod. Tears are building in his eyes. Hux hasn’t cried for years; he’s not a crier. Not weak like his father always stated he was. Not-- _

 

_ “Stupid whore.” His captor says. Something sticky-slick and foul hits his eye and it closes on impact; the spit trails down his face, seeping into his skin. He’s revolted. He can’t say anything. “Keep your legs open or I’m breaking them too.” _

 

_ Two fingers are shoved into him without preamble. Rushed, jerky movements reverberate throughout his entire body as he trembles, hole clamping down at the assault, twitching around his assailant and “fuck, you’re a tight one” he’s pushing harder, closing the distance and pulling Hux’s legs around his hips so he has no way to defend himself.  _

 

_ A cloth is shoved between his teeth and he bites down  _ hard  _ when the man enters him.  _

 

_ “No!” _

 

Awake.

 

He’s curled onto his side, with his bony, too-thin, bruised back pressed tight against the muscle of a warm chest. An arm is thrown over Armitage’s side, tugging him closer and keeping him still even as he shivers and his breath halts.

 

He’s being spooned.

 

He’s being bloody  _ spooned  _ by his ex-boyfriend-turned-demented-murderer, as if he hadn’t been kept chained by a metal bar through the ankle in a filthy cement room for the past however many years. Spooned by the very person who decided he must be  _ kept,  _ that he had to be isolated and confined because of his  _ flightiness _ and his  _ fear. _

 

And the worst part is that Armitage can’t bring himself to hate it. His body is thirsty for it, desperate to be warmed and held and coddled the way he hadn’t been allowed a chance to be for years,  _ decades even, before Ben, before…  _

 

Ben was always gentle with him, always reverent.  _ Safe.  _

 

Armitage curls in on himself… and reaches up with one hand to link his fingers with Kylo’s, tugging at his arm and sinking into the embrace, yearning to be loved and wanted and  _ worth something. _

 

His mother hadn’t been present in his life. Hadn’t even fought for him, hadn’t wanted him, had  _ left him to a revolting piece of shit,  _ a true bastard whose chain-smoked cigars meant more to him than his own fucking flesh and blood. She’d  _ left  _ him to be kicked around and belted for daring to even exist, left him to be  _ treated like dirt  _ because she was ashamed of the fact she’d even brought him into the world. 

 

And she made the right choice. Brendol made the right choice, in selling him off as a fucking sex slave, in sentencing him to virtual  _ death,  _ because Armitage hadn’t been meant to exist in the first place. He’d always known, somehow. He’d always--

 

Teeth sunk into his lip, eyes clenched tightly shut, he cries. Fully, desperately, disgustingly  _ emotive.  _ His tears were ugly things leaving scars upon the flesh they dared to touch, marking him so deeply that his internal ruin was only being shorn into his skin. Hux is ashamed. He’s already been  _ given  _ so much, given a second  _ chance,  _ because Kylo took him back, Kylo  _ wanted  _ him, and now he’s considering trying to slip away, to run from the only person who sees anything of worth in him? Armitage is nothing,  _ Hux was nothing,  _ he had nothing to live for, no reason to keep breathing save the fact others demanded it of him. Kylo saved his life,  _ Kylo killed Brendol,  _ and yet he’s lying here, trembling and torn with a need to run like a traitorous cur, who bit the hand of the one person willing to offer him sustenance?

 

_ Please. _

 

_ (Wrong. No. Pain. Abuse. Injury. Captivity. Not good. Never good. Hurts. Can’t. No more.) _

 

_ (pleaselovemepleaselovemeplease DONTLEAVEMEALONEHERE DONTTHROWMEAWAY) _

 

Armitage jerks violently in Kylo’s arms and then there are  _ eyes,  _ open, full of torment, watching him. A finger tracing the curve of his cheek, thumbs brushing away his tears. Ren’s eyes are wet, too, and fat with crystalline drops of a similar sort. His breathing is rough, his voice shaky when he finally speaks.

 

“I know what you’re feeling. The agony.”

 

_ No. _

 

“I’m so sorry, Hux.”

 

No.

 

“I’ll be good for you, this time. I’ve gotten stronger. You used to scold me for that-- being weak. Not standing up for myself. Not fighting to keep you.”

 

**No.**

 

“I’ve regretted it every day.”

 

Hands rest on Ben’s pectorals. Fingers bony, skin stretched too thin over the underlying joints. They’re not still, even though the world seems to have stopped.

 

Hux looks up, into Ben’s eyes. He cared for that boy once-- the pitiful, over-emotional child that Ben Solo was and had always seemed to be. Undisciplined. Wild. He’d made him hurt, once--  _ inwardly, through judgment.  _ But Hux had hurt more. Always just a little bit more, though he’d become callous enough that his skin had turned to steel and his heart to ice. Grandiosity… madness. Depravity. He thought he’d endured all he would ever have to during military school, with an abusive father, a problematic sexuality and an improper mental state. Once he’d been on his own, he believed he was invincible-- but all he’d done was become foolish. He hadn’t known hurt, then. Ben didn’t know it now.

 

With a rampant strength that emerges from within some abyssal place where it’s been tethered, a place that Armitage had hardly been aware of, he gazes directly into Ben’s eyes, straightens his fingers… and shoves Kylo Ren away.

 

Kylo gasps in shock, but Hux doesn’t wait to see what’s happened to him. He’s stumbling to his feet, crawling for a moment on the wooden floor as he attempts to regain his balance. He could care less that he’s wearing panties and a worn tee-shirt, could care less that his feet are bare and his skin is bruised like a summer peach in autumn; he hits the ground, drags himself onto his knees. His legs are screaming in pain, but he’s going to force them to work, no matter what, they won’t give out…

 

He’s running.

 

His shoulder smacks into the wall when he rounds the corner, pulling a door out from its frame to hinder Ren giving chance. He throws whatever he can onto the floor; pulls a bottle of liquor from a coffee table, tries to push pictures off the wall. Vaguely, Hux notes that his hands might be bleeding. There’s blood pounding in his head and he can hardly breathe, can barely see-----

 

_ A door.  _ He grips the handle, pulls on it violently. Again. Again.  _ Why won’t it open?  _ The lock is turned and it’s right in front of him. But it won’t budge. 

 

“Did you really think I’d be  _ stupid  _ enough not to take precautions?” There are arms around his waist, fingers crawling on his skin. He feels nauseated. Wants to puke. Ren will force a knife through his back and he’ll be as dead as Brendol.  _ Weak and stupid, useless little slut-- _

 

“Ben, I’m sorry,” he tries, but his mouth won’t work right. “I’m so sorry, I’ll be better, I’ll make it up to you, I know how--” his fingers reach for the line of Ben’s boxers, curling into the fabric and trying to work them off his hips.

 

“You’re _ lying.” _

 

Hux’s back hits wood and something  _ cracks.  _ He wants to scream, but the crying exhausted him and now he can only feel an unchanging, overwhelming sense of  _ apathy.  _ He’s reaching up for Kylo, panicked, cornered.

 

“I need you,” Armitage chokes.

 

“I know you do,” Kylo spits, red-faced and shuddering. “I  _ know  _ you do, but you can’t be trusted. Not then. Not now.” He grabs his ex-lover by the arm, drags him to his feet. Hauls him back, away from the door, away from  _ freedom…! _

 

Armitage flinches at the pain in Kylo’s eyes. His back hits the mattress of Ren’s bed again, and this time he doesn’t speak. Doesn’t move. Doesn’t look. There’s a chain wrapping around his leg and he whimpers, fearful.  _ Angry. _

 

“You’ll have to learn to  _ stay  _ before I let you move. If I need to chain you up to teach you, I will.” Kylo says, not even bothering to look at him. “I didn’t want to do this.  _ You made me do this.”  _ Accusatory, but sad. Heartbroken. Ben had seen people leave, too; his parents. His sister.

 

“Ben…”

 

“ _ Kylo,”  _ he is reminded, sharply. “I don’t want to look at you. I’m leaving. Try to sleep while I’m gone.”

 

Kylo turns around, throws the door to the bedroom shut behind him so hard that it rattles on its hinges, and is gone before Armitage can bring himself to even form a single thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided to make separate arcs for this story, so this is the end of conniption/arc I. arc ii is going to be more focused on the continuation of this section, and then arc iii will be reflective on the far-past before the fourth arc, which I hope to conclude with, that will unveil kylo's side of things and hopefully explain some more shit. thanks to everyone who is following along! your reviews keep me going <3


	4. noyade (one)

arc ii: _n_ _oyade_

_time passed: three months since reunion_

Hux is drowning.

 

He finds himself burdened by memories between waking moments, and in the deepest throes of sleep; the cracks in cement walls streaked with filth and blood, the imagined weight of rusted shackles locked in place around his wrists. He thinks of eating from the palm of Master’s hand and thanking his captors for their  _ mercy,  _ because their actions were benevolent, always. He should be grateful. Grateful that he hadn’t been resold, that he hadn’t been given to some other buyer who wanted to make meat of his flesh or strip it from his bones on the basis of entertainment. Grateful that he wasn’t being forced to act in snuff, that his bones remained intact, that his mouth hadn’t been sewn up for his disrespect. He was  _ pretty,  _ they said;  _ lucky for it, because all you’ll ever have to do is spread your legs. _

 

_ What if you get tired of me?  _ He had wanted to ask, but he’d bit his tongue instead, until the tang of blood filled the width of his mouth and he’d gurgled on the blood that pushed into his throat, the bile that flooded his windpipe.

 

Sometimes he is drowning in other ways, too. He remembers pressuring Ben into drinking a bottle of his father’s brandy with him while their parents are fuming at each other in a courtroom thirty minutes away, remembers the burn of the liquor against his tonsils and the way that Ben’s cheeks had flushed as he’d leaned over and pressed a kiss to the corner of Hux’s mouth, hesitant.

 

_ Are you an imbecile?  _ Hux had spat, and he’d struck Ben once across the face for the audacity the action had taken. He’d regretted it later-- realized that the boy’s kiss hadn’t been unenjoyable at all, albeit obviously inexperienced. Still, Ben was only fifteen and Hux was nearing the end of his teenage years, would be off to university soon enough, doubted Ben would care enough to come. Ben didn’t seem to care about anything but complaining.

 

(Complaining about  _ nothing,  _ Hux had told his friend Phasma in a bar years later.  _ He whines and bitches about the most trivial things and expects me to feel sorry for him. I’m not going to indulge him by helping him play pity party over actions that he caused himself. He should’ve been aware of the repercussions. I’ve given him advice, all the tools he needs to get out of this mess, and he hasn’t done a fucking thing. Because all he wants is  _ empathy.  _ It’s absurd.) _

 

Armitage Hux had never been given the  _ luxury  _ of empathy. It was why he’d managed to catch on so quickly after being taken-- if he submitted, they left him mostly intact, cleaned him up, made sure to bandage his wounds. If he spoke out, he’d be tossed aside like garbage and left in a compromising position with no way of breaking free. Brendol had beaten him often for his mistakes, and yet it wasn’t something that Hux reflected on with contempt.

 

_ No,  _ he’d considered.  _ It’s why I’m stronger than the rest of them are. Why I’ve always been stronger. _

 

He had learned quickly with Kylo, as well-- what he wanted from Armitage, what he needed from him. Ben had always been partial to soft kisses and intimate touches, entwined hands, sympathetic eyes. Kylo hadn’t lost that weakness; he was a beast that could be collared with the promise of affection, and if Armitage gave him a treat from time to time, Kylo would reward him in turn. He didn’t hide the time that had been passing, would tell Armitage what day it was if he asked. He would talk about his employer, if Armitage worded it carefully enough, placed demure questions into conversation with innocent declarations of love and sweet, plying, open-mouthed kisses. Using his body to get things that he wanted wasn’t shameful without Brendol alive to lecture him for it; Armitage had always managed to find some level of strength in his forced weakness, a prize allowed by his intellect if nothing else.

 

But still, his intelligence can only carry him so far and for so long. Because he is drowning-- overwhelmed and undertaken by the devotion which Kylo Ren has begun to bestow upon him in turn at his submission and compliance. He had been stunned at the revelation of  _ honesty  _ that still managed to hide behind Kylo’s words when he had his fits, saw fit to lash out at Armitage and injure him as a product of his rage.  _ I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt you,  _ Kylo had told him.  _ I know you need me. I want you. _

 

And he hadn’t been lying. He was placated by Hux’s arms around him, by the way he sometimes pressed his face into Kylo’s neck, or stroked his hair gently when Kylo came home covered in blood and shaking beneath the black fabric of his conservative clothing and trenchcoat, eyes wide with shock as much as loathing. Kylo would bury his face in Armitage’s hair in breathe in the scent of him, clinging to him with well-muscled arms and asking him if he’d been good, if he’d  _ done well,  _ making sure that Armitage wasn’t going to leave him,  _ because I’ve only just gotten you back, Hux, and I can’t lose you again. My gingersnap. My princess. _

 

It was painful to realize that Ben Solo was the only person who’d ever managed to find something to  _ love  _ about the young Armitage Hux; behind the outer wall of abrasiveness and criticism and cynical, jaded psychoanalysis, he’d found something worth appreciating, even if he hadn’t done it well. And he still seemed to acknowledge it.  _ You’re not a whore,  _ he would tell Armitage now, whenever he so much as dared to bring up a mention of their reunion.  _ They made you do it, you didn’t want to. That’s what you told me. You never wanted to. Your father made you and he’s dead now. That disgusting piece of shit won’t ever be capable of hurting you again. You’re radiant. You’re beautiful. I’ll protect you. _

 

The promises were hardly something to be held to a high standard, as Kylo was still an overemotional and volatile madman, but there was also something sweet and cloying about his devotion, something  _ heartfelt  _ about the promises. Armitage didn’t trust Kylo-- how could he? Even if the man had seen fit to remove his shackles, he would never let him leave the house, wouldn’t leave him alone with a phone or a laptop-- but he did…  _ appreciate  _ him. Wants him, even, for the compliments and the codependency and the  _ insanity  _ of it all. Kylo treated him like a doll, but he was reverent when Armitage was good, obviously didn’t want to hurt him unless he thought he needed punishment. He made Hux feel small. Made him feel cared for, something he’d never been allowed previously. Brendol had always urged him not to show any emotion, not to allow others to  _ coddle  _ him or  _ hold  _ him, lest he start becoming soft. But there was no possibility of that happening anymore. Armitage was already broken, splintered into so many pieces that he’d never have to worry about being  _ soft  _ again. He was brittle and paranoid and traumatized, frustrated and isolated and prone to impulsivity, uncaring, schizoid, lacking compassion. 

 

He was damaging beyond repair, to others just as much as himself. And Kylo still wanted to hold him and keep him safe and guarded. Like he really was a princess and not some fragmented victim. What point was there in hating that type of  _ sweet, saccharine stupidity? _

 

* * *

 

He is sitting crosslegged in bed, legs tucked beneath a soft, grey blanket and eyes fixed on the latest book that Kylo had brought home to him when he hears the sound of a truck outside. The engine dies a few seconds after the rumble first seemed to begin, and Kylo is throwing open the door, tossing a man onto the wooden floor of the house with a loud thud. Armitage hears muffled curses, a yelp-- something reminiscent of fabric being dragged across the floor. Kylo disappears down the stairs that lead to the basement, pulling whatever scum he’s dragged in behind him, the sound of a human head clunking against the stairs audible just behind the door. 

 

Armitage looks to the backdoor, where the shades across the small window at the top have been drawn, but keys have not been misplaced. Kylo had grabbed them before he’d managed to get to the basement. Unfortunate, he thinks, before sighing at the traitorous part of his mind that still wanted to  _ escape.  _ No contacts. It had been so long since Hux had been a part of this community that most had likely forgotten about his existence; he turns toward the basement door instead. 

 

There’s a trail of blood that’s spilled out across the floor from Kylo’s latest hit; it’s such a mess that it’s nearly unnerving Armitage to even look at. He smooths the lines out of his form-fitting pants, turns to walk toward the kitchen, crouching on the floor and opening up the cabinet just beneath the sink, enough to pull out a bucket containing a couple of rags.

 

He’s sure Kylo will appreciate it when he cleans up the mess that the man’s leaking body left behind, viscera and bile and whatever other bodily fluids had been clinging to him. The thought of having to spend time near a stench like that again makes Armitage’s head ache; he needs it to be clean. Needs there to be  _ order  _ in the house, more than there ever was when it had been Kylo alone to rule this domain. Kylo will be annoyed that he did not ask first, but he will understand. It would save him the work of having to hose down the place after the effort he was putting into the kill in the first place.

 

There’s a echoing scream from down the stairs that chills Armitage to the bone. He plunges a gloved hand into the water of the bucket as he passes and attempts to ignore it. The floor will be shining again soon. Better than it’s been for weeks. Kylo will appreciate because he has to. Snoke will be happy with the job that he’s done, and his temper will remain unperturbed for the time being. Everything is fine. Everything is…

 

The floor  _ shakes  _ and Armitage nearly jumps. Rattling comes from the direction of the stairs nd the door swings upon. They Kylo is standing over him, looking down on his body where he’s kneeled just inside the entryway. His eyes dart to the locked door. The expression on his face softens when he notices the rag clutched in Armitage’s fist.

 

“I’m sorry about the mess,” he says. 

 

“It’s alright.” Hux begins, then amends. “I just-- the sight of it makes me uncomfortable. I thought I’d be doing you a favor.”

 

“You shouldn’t have to do that,” Kylo tells him, kneeling down close to him and gathering Armitage’s wet hands in his own. “Your knuckles aren’t recovered. I’d rather have you stay in bed. My princess needs his beauty rest-- needs time to recov--”

 

“I am recovered.” Armitage’s tone drops, stoic. He doesn’t want to discuss this-- that. The past. Not now. “Besides, I haven’t anything else to do.”

 

“Didn’t you set up that radio I got you?”

 

“Yes, but half of the stations I’ve managed to find are Christian talk radio channels and televangelists. I’ve been reading, but I’m  _ bored.” _

 

Kylo looks to his hand. Kisses his knuckles, then releases it. “Well I’m home, now. Maybe we could…”

 

Ben was always incorrigible, too. Unnaturally horny. Armitage has no idea how he used to accommodate it. His ass still feels sore from the time last week-- not to mention the memories. Blood on his clothing.  _ Drowning.  _ Choking on the saliva and cum of men he’d been forced to pleasure. Bruises on his wrists--

 

He’s gone rigid. Kylo is looking at him, the corner of his mouth downturned. He speaks before Armitage even has a chance to.

 

“Fine. I’m going to make dinner. I’ll find a movie for us after.”

 

Anger boils up inside of Armitage. He wants to snap at Ren, curse him for his inability to properly understand what trauma is, smack him and bite him and beat him for keeping him like this, as if he is an invalid, Kylo’s disabled little fucking wife or some sort of shit like that, a possession more than a person. Sometimes Hux considers that’s exactly what he is here-- it’s all he’ll ever be. A prize for Kylo to show off, an object that he claims to love without understanding the meaning of the word love. 

 

He doesn’t say any of this, of course. Has learned to hold his tongue as he’s always meant to do. Nods, watches Kylo stand.

 

“Maybe later,” he speaks, and watches Kylo’s hands stop twitching irately.

 

“I have work.”

 

“After, then.” Armitage adds. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  
_ I can’t,  _ he amends, inwardly, and curses his selfishness. Kylo has already done so much to make him feel wanted-- but then, he decides, Kylo hasn’t done anything to make him feel  _ free,  _ and freedom is the one thing that Armitage can never fully stop craving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> once again, leave comments if you're interested or enjoying the fic so far. nothing helps keep me going quite as much! thanks to everyone for the support thus far. i know this type of fic is always very controversial in fandom.


	5. noyade (two)

When Armitage sleeps, he is always burdened by the scent of blood and the feeling of hands, knives and leather raining blows upon his quivering flesh. He considers that it is because he has been unable to reconcile his experiences with his present (he is not a whole person, of course, not anymore), because he is, forever,  _ weak.  _ Sometimes if he breathes in, he cannot breathe out for fear of a gloved hand closed tight around his windpipe, stifling the screams which he has yet to let loose.

 

He frequently wakes in a cold sweat, less rested than he is even during his periods of dogged fatigue through most days. His body will feel cold, despite being swaddled in a sheath of blankets, regardless of Ren’s arms wrapped tight around his body. Kylo’s touch only seems to make him colder, and the house-- even with the new-old luxuries that Armitage has been allowed-- is colder still.

 

Somehow, the situation is almost ironic-- when he was captive, he would beg and plead and  _ pray  _ for sleep, desperate for a single allowance of numbing ignorance where he might be able to escape the atrocities of his true situation. But now, in this outward illusion of false comfort, his nightmares have followed him into his dreams instead. The waking world has become his place of ignorance, a mirage of bliss meant to cover the true malice that is Kylo Ren.

 

Ren is a sociopath; this is Armitage’s first deduction. Impulsive, entitled, charming when in public and a monster once he doesn’t have anyone he needs to mask for. Incapable of understanding morality, although Hux himself had never been particularly adept with that-- he had always lacked personal values. 

_ (Demented,  _ he murmurs softly,  _ authoritarian. Emotionless, heartless, prudish bastard. Judgmental. Intransigent. Always.) _

Still, he feels at once both more and less human in Kylo’s grip; a child’s toy, something like a pretty, painted doll for the antisocial monster to dress up and keep at his side. An object, motionless and compliant and devoid of any emotion save for unadulterated admiration.

 

Rumination leaves Armitage contemplating that the analogy is all too true, and it has only been made worse by his own inaction and ever-present anxiety. He would not risk escape again, lest he incur Ren’s wrath and destroy whatever shred of mercy the man has left for him. He does not dare to move, when Ren is holding him, or kissing him, or fucking him, no matter how vile the feeling of a snake-like tongue probing his mouth or the sickening spend of parasitic waste seeping out of him proves to be.

 

(He has grown compliant, pressed his own being into the doll-like mould of a sculptured victim, and were Hux even half the man he'd once been, he ought to feel disgusted for it.)

 

(Armitage only feels relief. Kylo loves him. Kylo would never hurt him if he was good. Kylo would probably even let him leave the house if he kept up his submissive and demure behavior.)

 

There are boots clanging on stairs again. Armitage sits up on the couch where he'd previously been lying, stretched out under a blanket and idly watching the brewing coffee in the pot just across the room from his position, and waits. For a moment he thinks that the steps are Kylo; must be Kylo, who else could they belong to? But the sound is too soft, not enough to support Kylo’s weight-- and they are not coming from the basement.

 

Armitage throws the covers off of his body, frantically glancing about for a weapon. For a moment he asks himself why he would  _ need  _ a weapon-- why, if the other person is not Kylo, and should be rightfully horrified at the reality of his situation? Unless, of course, this person is  _ worse--  _ strong enough to kill Kylo, clever enough to wait around for when the hitman isn't home. A brute, or a sadist, or perhaps even a rapist; come to carry Armitage off and sell him back into slavery or use him as the main event in some sort of… diabolical snuff pornography, perhaps. 

 

He cannot be sure that Kylo is even home; gone when Armitage had woken, yet with a prisoner still strapped up and bleeding out in the basement, and a former sex slave walking around in his home, still wearing the face and bearing the name of a missing college student. Surely even Ren would not be so stupid, but…

 

Armitage braces himself with his back against the wall, beside the door, out of sight from the windows. His breathing suddenly sounds cacophonous, loud beyond belief. Sweat drips down his brow, clinging to the arc of his hairline, his hands balling into tight fists with broken nails digging into the flesh of his palms. He takes a deep breath…

 

The doorbell rings.

 

It’s such an unfamiliar and abnormal sound that Armitage initially startles at the echo of the chime. Ben, socially awkward as he was, rarely had visitors, and the reinvented-Ben seemed to have even less than that. In fact, for the three and a half months that Armitage has inhabited this house alongside him, he has not seen Kylo attempt to navigate pleasant conversation or start a social interaction with anyone. (Discounting his marks, of course, but those conversations were more like one-sided interrogations, with an added side effect of blood-letting.)

 

Snapping himself from his stupor, Armitage has the foresight to peer out of the deck from behind the window curtain, taking great care to remain unseen. There is a young woman on the steps-- hair dark, skin pale, facing away from the door. A slightly older man stands beside her; dark and well-muscled and vaguely familiar looking, although Armitage can’t seem to place his face. 

 

The woman turns around and Armitage stumbles. His leg catches against an end-table and his body, lithe though it is, crashes unceremoniously onto the wooden floor. A half-formed scream stops itself at his lips, and the ginger smacks his hand over his face to keep from letting loose any sort of cry. The effect is an intensified pounding, and a determined (albeit somewhat frustrated sounding) voice calling out.

 

“Ben! I heard that, and I know you’re in there! Open the door.”

 

Frantic, Armitage flits through memories, trying to recall whether or not there was any method of contacting Kylo; whether or not he was even  _ home,  _ or where he might possibly be, if that wasn’t the case. Something about--

 

_ Snoke. _

 

From the little information that Armitage has been given about Kylo’s employer, he knows the man is both secretive and a master of meddling in personal affairs. If Kylo is with Snoke, it’s probably about the target chained up in the basement-- possibly about money. Kylo had been frustrated recently over something in the mail. But Kylo and Snoke are both unreachable. There are two people currently waiting on Kylo’s--  _ no, Ben’s-- _ doorstep. 

 

_ Think. She called him Ben. Knows where he lives, sounded annoyed. Assuming any of Ren’s professional contacts know him by his alias only, save for Snoke, who from what I recall is an older male, the contact seems to be personal instead. Kylo has living family, but he is out of contact with his mother, and he mentioned that Han was in hospital. That’s public news, he could’ve read that online. So… _

 

_ His uncle. Luke had-- _

 

“Ben, come on. You knew I was coming for weeks-- we  _ discussed  _ it after Han’s accident. Your mother’s worried about you.”

 

_ \-- he had a daughter, right? Ben’s cousin. She was younger, and Leia babysat her frequently. She trailed around after Ben at meetings-- and she knows the house isn’t empty. So either I avoid her, or… _

 

_ I talk to her. _

 

Kylo wouldn’t like it. He’d threaten him; call Armitage a  _ liar,  _ say he was making false promises, trying to leave again. 

 

(He should leave. He should do everything in his power to leave. This is exactly the chance that he’s been waiting for-- alone, with other people, no Kylo around to monitor him or lock him away. He could escape. Be a  _ free man  _ again, in society. Not have to worry about sex, or beatings, or torture, or starvation. Wouldn’t have to worry that one day, Ren would get angry and decide he’d had enough of Armitage,  _ his pretty gingersnap or not.  _ Wouldn’t be afraid that he might die.)

 

(Where would he go, if not with Ben? Who would want to help him? Who would have the mind to care?)

 

Armitage Hux was dead. Armitage Ren, the broken, traumatized, isolated sex trafficking victim was the person that had replace him. And if something like freedom, or escape, or autonomy isn’t fully plausible, then that means…

 

_ I’m throwing my lot in with him. _

 

He stood up, hands shaking as he tentatively took a few steps back toward the door, then put his hand on the curtain, pulling it back again, then quickly letting go of the cloth.

 

The girl was still there, but the man had left; a car’s engine rumbled to life somewhere beyond his vision. She was leaving. The threat was gone…

 

_ But not fully. She could look in one of the other windows; circle around to the door in the kitchen. Pull herself in through the downstairs window… _

 

_ The downstairs window. _

 

_ Fuck. _

 

If Kylo had been trying to air blood out of the room, the window would still be unlocked, possibly even cracked open-- if the girl tried to walk to the back, or looked into the basement, she’d have reason to call the authorities. And what if she said that her  _ cousin _ might have been hurt? Killed? What happens when the police show up and see a strange man loitering around in Ben Organa-Solo’s house, a man who absolutely nobody likely knows? What then?

 

“Ben isn’t home,” he says, finally, when he hears footsteps against the creaky platform of the porch. “I’m-- I’m sick, unfortunately; otherwise I’d let you in. Ben ran to the store to grab medicine. Could you come back this evening?”

 

“Who are you?” The girl immediately snaps back, stepping closer to the door. “Why are you in my cousin’s house? He doesn’t talk to anyone--”

 

“You’re right, he doesn’t talk to  _ anyone  _ in his family,” Armitage quips back. “I’m his-- his fiance. We’ve been engaged for about three and a half months.”  _ Not technically a lie.  _ “He didn’t mention you were coming either-- but I assume you’re his… cousin? The one he took care of when he was younger? So I thought I’d--” he coughs, loudly, hacking for a better effect. “I  _ thought  _ I’d be nice and tell you when he’s coming back. I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”

 

There’s silence for a good minute. Then, he can hear the girl breathing, loudly. Sighing, as he presses his ear against the door and listens for her response.

 

“Alright, I’ll be back this evening. Though I can’t believe Ben didn’t tell me he was  _ engaged.”  _ Her footsteps peel away from the door. “Thank you-- Ben would probably have slammed the door in my face anyway. I hope you get to feeling better.”

 

“Drive safely.”

 

Armitage waits until the telltale signal of the pair’s retreat-- tires crunching over gravel-- finally fades, before he sinks down to the floor, his back pressed against the door. Admittedly, it wasn’t his best work-- and he doesn’t know why he lied-- but the problem is… gone. Somewhat. Mostly.

 

( _ And if she calls Ren? If her curiosity remains, and the cops pull into the driveway instead? There’s  _ evidence,  _ everywhere. In the basement. Ren’s armoire. The knives in the sink. The extra locks on the door-- everything, I can’t--) _

 

_ I have to get rid of it. _

 

_ I have to get rid of-- this. Fix it. The basement. His mark. If the man’s dead, the body needs moving. And if he’s alive… _

 

_ … if he’s alive… _

 

Armitage’s shoulders tremble. He does  _ not  _ want to think about that possibility. Especially if Kylo doesn’t come back in time.

 

He pulls himself to his feet, unsteady, half-fatigued and feeling rather nauseous, the pressure of an unyielding and suspenseful agony ramming into his gut and scorching each one of his internal organs and brittle bones.

 

He walks to the kitchen. Grabs the rags from beside the sink. Fills the bucket sitting on the counter, squeezes some soap and bleach into the mixture for good measure. Then, he reaches for a knife, tucks it into the bucket just beneath the water. 

 

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. ( _ Doesn’t have to do it,  _ his subconscious adds,  _ didn’t have to speak to the girl. Could have given the truth before a lie. Remained the helpless, broken victim. Kylo is just like your father; abusive, maniacal, sociopathic, foolish, demanding. He doesn’t want you, he just wants a willing cocksleeve and a trapped punching bag. If he cared, he’d let you go-- give you back your freedom. Help you…) _

 

_ (He saved me. Is protecting me. Kept me here for my own good. Society is dangerous-- people can’t be trusted, you know that better than anyone. And Kylo doesn’t beat you anymore. Not since the first week. He gave you a radio, and your books. Lets you sleep in a warm bed, leaves you as many groceries as you want. He doesn’t want anyone else to break in and kill you, steal you again-- not like the others would have done, no, he’s  _ better,  _ he’s  _ Ben.)

 

Armitage opens the basement door. The lights are off; the walls cracked and ancient in appearance, much like the floor of the landing, painted red too many times for the cement not to stain. He takes one step down, then another. And another. Over and over, until he reaches the bottom.

 

There’s someone--  _ or the remains of them, at least--  _ trapped in a chair. Their skin has been flayed from the muscle of their arms, and their legs end in bloody, meat-like stumps. The smell is acrid, like death and disease and decay and  _ so much like Master’s room, I don’t want to go to the back room, I don’t.  _ Whatever eyes they had were scooped out of the sockets, leaving only gaping holes in their place. Teeth have been pulled from their mouth and blood still paints the flesh of their chin. Their clothing is torn beyond repair. And they are, unmistakably, dead.

 

Hux sets the bucket down. Then he moved toward the chair, hefting the body up with bony hands underneath decimated arms, dragging the corpse off of the chair and tossing them haphazardly on the cement. He takes hold of one of the corpse’s hands, dragging the body across the floor to the tile corner, throwing it down without any care for the  _ thing  _ that they’ve clearly become. 

 

Armitage braces his back against the wall, out of breath. He doesn’t want this, any of it. Wishes he could take it all back. Wishes he could kill himself before he implicated his identity in whatever mess he’d just created…

 

But he doesn’t have time to think. Right now, he’s on clean-up duty.

  
And he’s going to make damn sure that those  _ nosy kids _ don’t take his Ren away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took me so long, finals have been a bitch this year and I've been struggling a lot with my physical health, so it's a bit later than I would have liked. Thanks again to everyone for the wonderful and awesome comments, and I hope everyone's interested with where the story is going! As always, TBC.


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